Cutoff Weekend Friday Playoff Update – Group 2: Bernards edges up, but still no top-seed; Voorhees locks up bid, Dayton can play itself in, Spotswood will miss playoffs at 8-1

Spotswood senior QB Se’mir Tolbert-Brimage celebrates his third touchdown of the game in a 38-0 home win over Middlesex on August 28, 2025. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Football Notebook
by Mike Pavlichko

With Friday night’s Cutoff Weekend high school football games all in the books, Central Jersey Sports Radio is updating the unofficial NJSIAA playoff standings as we head into Saturday action.

We’ll have further analysis late morning into the afternoon Saturday, with our 2025 “Playoff Projection Show” scheduled for 6 pm where we give our bracket projections. The full tournament for the public schools will be unveiled on Sunday by the NJSIAA via Gridiron New Jersey. We’ll have them shortly after. The brackets become official at noon on Monday.

NORTH GROUP 2

Table displaying the unofficial NJSIAA playoff standings for North Group 2 high school football teams, including team names, win-loss records, points averaged, and other statistics.
  • Even with a win Friday night over Carteret, Bernards still won’t get the top-seed, even though they edged up one place overall. Westwood and Shabazz will get top-seeds, with Shabazz getting it in North 2, Group 2, the same section as the Mountaineers, who would then be the two-seed.
  • Dayton sits in 18th but hosts Brearley Saturday. It’s a true play-in game. Win and they’re in, lose and they’re out.

SOUTH GROUP 2

Table displaying the playoff standings for high school football in South Group 2, including team names, wins, losses, ties, point average (PP AVG), and rankings.
  • The top two seeds flipped here, even though both won. Haddonfield should get the South Jersey Group 2 top seed, while Camden will be the Central Jersey Group 2 No. 1 seed.
  • Johnson held in 8th.
  • Voorhees wrapped up a spot with a win in the Milk Can Game at North Hunterdon.
  • Spotswood, however, is going to be the big news. You could talk about their schedule not being as good as some others, but they beat the teams that were given to them – all but Dayton – including five-win Roselle Park, five-win Bound Brook, and four-win Brearley (who has a chance at a fifth Saturday at Dayton.) Having an 8-1 team miss the playoffs is just absurd, and it’s a combination of a) moving down in divisions after some down years heading into the most recent two-year Big Central scheduling cycle (the new one starts next season), b) a need for better scheduling of crossovers in the Big Central (we’ll have some ideas next week) and c) a state scheduling formula that still gives too much emphasis to losses against strong competition. Welcome to New Jersey, where a win isn’t just a win anymore. You know the old adage, “You don’t get style points?” Apparently, here, you do.

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